Many people who are considering purchasing an aftermarket car DVD player soon find themselves quickly confused by all the acronyms or abbreviations that see in an online add for some whiz-bang player.

here's really no mystery to what many mean and just a couple minutes research can reveal just what the ad for the player is saying. In this regard one of several car DVD player mysteries: What is PTY? is quickly answered with just a brief read through this article.

To begin with, today's modern aftermarket car DVD players come with a variety of functions and features.

In addition to standard radio, TV tuner and DVD/CD/CD-RW (compact disc, rewritable) and other disc-playing and decoding capabilities, the player might also feature GPS navigation, Bluetooth communication, picture-in-picture (PIP) and other convenience features. One of them is PTY. But, what is it and how does it work?

Simply put, PTY is a feature offered in many car DVD players sold in a number of countries that allow the user of the device to search for radio broadcast channels of certain types.

For example, say somebody likes talk radio or even classical music. In countries that require broadcast signals to contain identifying signals such as the programming format of the station (and most do), the car DVD player will be able to pick out only those stations featuring those formats.

In the United States, one large domestic auto manufacturer has offered a variation of PTY in certain of its car radios for years, and it works well at picking out stations that broadcast their format types through their signals.

Now that many countries are making the move completely to digital broadcast, the amount of information that can be contained in a typical signal is almost limitless. PTY, therefore, will be seen with greater frequency in the years to come.

Many aftermarket car DVD players sold in countries where the broadcast standard is DVB-T ("Digital Video Broadcast ?Terrestrial") offer the PTY function as standard equipment.

This standard isn't available in North America, where ATSC has replaced the older NTSC standard, so always make sure that any aftermarket player being purchased comes with the right broadcast signal tuners for the country in which you live.

PTY can be a very convenient feature for those users who are traveling through areas in which they're not familiar with the radio stations and what their programming formats are.

Going from London, England over to Liverpool might mean having to look for your favorite ska or jazz music in the new city. Well, with PTY it's as simple as using the touchscreen or the remote, selecting the kind of music you'd like the player to find and then letting it locate a station playing that kind of music.

If there are problems with PTY it mainly has to do with the function's occasional inability to easily identify stations that don't clearly broadcast the right kind of information in their signals.

PTY can sometimes hang up on one station, in which case it then needs to be manually re-tasked. It's really no big deal, though. So; if you're in the market for a good player, know that you can find one that'll find you all the stations you want with a simple command.